“Your great-uncle claimed his back pain in 1983 was caused by a sabotaged chair,” Maggie adds.
“He also believed aliens used his garden as a landing strip,” I point out.
Callum finally sits, dragging a hand through his hair.
“How did this happen?” he asks, more controlled now. “Last I heard, you were threatening to strangle him with his own kilt.”
I launch into the carefully crafted version of events—the tension, the arguments, the slow shift into something more, the hidden understanding beneath the conflict.
“So you expect me to believe you went from ‘I hate you’ to ‘marry me’ in… what? Three weeks?” he says flatly.
“Love doesn’t follow a schedule,” I shrug. “Right, Jane?”
Jane chokes slightly on her wine.
“Yes. Absolutely,” she says after recovering. “We’re living proof.”
Callum narrows his eyes at me.
“You’re hiding something.”
I open my mouth to deny it?—
The door bursts open.
Jamison stands there, visibly shaken.
“My apologies, but there is a situation in the garden.”
“What kind of situation?” my mother asks.
“A sheep, Madam. A ewe, to be precise. It appeared out of nowhere and is currently… consuming the rose bushes.”
“Another sheep?” my mother groans. “Isn’t Hamish enough?”
“This one is… different,” Jamison says carefully. “Smaller. Whiter. More… elegant.”
“Elegant?” Maggie perks up.
“Very much so.”
We all rush to the window.
And there she is.
A pristine white ewe, balancing gracefully along the stone wall like a tightrope walker.
“How elegant!” Maggie sighs. “Like a dancer.”
“It’s a sheep,” Callum mutters.
“There is something special about her,” Jane says softly. “Look at the way she moves.”
“Where did it come from?” my mother asks.
I stare at it—small, graceful, almost delicate.
And then?—
